Anna, Queen of Carrot Flowers
by Mehmed el-Sanna
Summary: With her sister locked away, Anna finds solace in a plucky blonde from the Kingdom of Corona. Of course, when two lonely princesses meet, 'friendship' will often lead to something more... [Contains Anna/Rapunzel, rated T for suggestive themes and alcohol reference]


It's almost midday and Anna is still lying across her bed, head buried in a pillowy grave and mind wandering around the pretty blonde before her.

After getting up, Rapunzel likes to strip to Bloomers on the hardwood floor, testing how far apart she can stretch her legs or whether she can touch her toes. The exercises knead her lithe figure into aching submission, which is all _slightly_ embarrassing to Anna on account of her own penchant to simply gorge herself on chocolates from the castle kitchen, but the redhead isn't going to argue with the chance to watch Punzie splay her small muscles in a dance with the noontime sun. Perhaps Anna feels guilty about a bit more than just that- perhaps the fact that Rapunzel can cook Anna her favorite meals, can read her poetry and paint bittersweet murals on the walls- perhaps all these, when juxtaposed with Anna's consummate ability to do naught but cheer her on, whirl the gears of guilt deep behind her navel. But Rapunzel tells her every day that she couldn't ask for anything more in the world, and well... Anna just has to trust her.

It's not as if Anna doesn't feel likewise. With her own sister self-exiled like a despondent Shakespearean protagonist, Rapunzel superseded the crack of light under Elsa's door, filling Anna's mortal vessel with those near-forgotten tonics called 'indeterminable hope' and 'personal pleasantry'. Rapunzel had come across the sea bearing a peculiar type of love which left Anna at first conflicted but eventually wobbly in the knees whenever she lay eyes on her: Punzie's playfulness and earnest curiosity were infectious... and Anna was glad to serve as a vector for the blonde's explorations. After all, Anna was quite literally a princess, and Rapunzel was her stalwart knight come crusading for the token of her delicate hand, sweeping her from the horizons of desolation.

It has been just about a year since Anna asserted the intention to leave Arendelle Castle in favor of a residency in a small tower on the superior side of the fjord, used centuries ago to scan for Viking marauders but long abandoned and left to the regency of ivy leaves. Rapunzel, of course, was the backbone in the effort to restore it to some semblance of habitability, and now the bucolic chamber is more accustomed to the smell of caramelized vegetables on a warm hearth than the smell of straw-mice squeaking in the eaves. Still, with those many months fading into the recesses of happy memory, Anna can spend all day just _thinking_ about Punzie. Or, _Puncess_, as she sometimes calls her, much to Rapunzel's chagrin.

Rapunzel is like shortcakes and strawberry liqueur- Anna gets so focused on the sweetness of it all that before she even realizes what's happening, she's finished her entire cup without _really_ getting a taste. But the difference between Punzie and those spirits Anna indulged in on occasion is that Punzie would always be ready for her again, and again, and again, until the sky had already drifted off, dreamed, and then blinked its sleepy eyes on the chimney at the first chirping of the sparrows. It gave Anna a childlike amazement to observe how Rapunzel could cavort with her until the wee hours of the morning and still wake up a veritable peach. Maybe _that _would explain how Anna stayed in shape.

Punzie arches backwards to leave the ladder of her ribs and chest in full relief, and Anna might be blushing about now (to be so young and so _damn_ in love). When Rapunzel springs herself forward and catches the coattails of Anna's bashful glance, she smiles, revealing twin emerald moons behind a cloud of eyelashes. Anna can feel her own hands trembling and she tries to hide them down under the covers, but that only draws up even more memories.

Sometimes, on those junebug days where the midsummer sun dusts the fractaled fields later than ever before in the year, they wouldn't use the covers at all and Rapunzel would just wrap the two of them up with her silky hair. Anna grabs the mattress in excitement just thinking about it: the softness all around her, the smell of a faint candle stirred with perfume, or the mellifluousness of Rapunzel's voice, like notes from an airy flute peppered with the lovely Ostprueßen accent. Punzie was always her troubadour, whether it was brushing a fiery braid off her face while singing a love song, or just the music within the patter of her bare feet on the stained floorboards. Upon hearing the latter, Anna would be struck with an overwhelming hunger to grab Rapunzel's legs and stroke her from her thighs to her firm calves, ending the symphony with a little tickle of Punzie's toes. Anna almost gasps at the incredulity of it all, how Rapunzel could be all _hers_.

It was on those solstice evenings that Anna most desired to have Rapunzel take up one of the strange books she brought from her homeland and read, translating for Anna as she went along- her favorite authors were Hölderlin and von Kleist, though the effect of the original language was lost on Anna. Anna would give a jocular tease when Punzie stumbled on a word, to which Punzie would respond with her usual brag that _she_ was four months older than Anna and therefore it was _rude_ to correct a superior.  
>Anna felt the weight of fate upon her on those nights, because they always ended the same way. They would weave hyacinths into each others' hair, Punzie would set about tracing hearts with her finger on Anna's pale face, and Anna would caress the pink fabric on Punzie's chest, sucking in an enamoured breath before reaching forward to take Punzie in her arms. Rapunzel's figure was petite, but of a perfect size to accommodate the curve of Anna's palms and to lend Anna the opportunity of taking the world's weight for a few blissful moments, as if in the constancy of slight gravitation resided all of Rapunzel's insecurities and domestic troubles. With those demons fleeing before Anna's touch, Rapunzel would moan in relief.<p>

Did they fight? Yes, they would fight as even the greatest friends are liable to do. Raised voices and flushed cheeks, maybe Rapunzel would turn her bronzed figure away and meet Anna with silence, or Anna would storm back to spend the day in the castle, in some half-remembered expectation that this time Elsa would open her door. But inevitably, Punzie's pouting and a few resolutions later, a few promises remade and premises rethought, they would be back together in romantic solidarity.

Anna loved to watch Rapunzel comb her locks, she loved how Rapunzel had named her pet chameleon after a mathematician, she loved how Rapunzel kissed her on the lips (and indeed other places) and the fact that Rapunzel could exist in such a paradoxical bubble of innocence and unutterable naughtiness. Punzie got stressed when she was tired, she got all stoic and contemplative when she was drunk, and Anna loved her all the way through. Fleeing to the surrender of Punzie's full lips and the heat of her stomach through her camisole was what Anna lived for, though the next best thing was being able to just wake up next to her goddess in the morning and feel so _safe_.  
>That was all it was about really, and Anna found no fault in it. Everyone went about their lives while the two princesses reigned over their private empire, taking things day by day and night by night.<br>She usually tried not to think about it, but the melancholic truth that they would never be able to have their own child, nor feel a baby kicking behind a soft belly, sometimes oppressed her. Such was the price to pay for ephemeral paradise.

In the meantime, Rapunzel would try to teach Anna how to draw or how to speak German (to _questionable_ results), while Anna would pitch her lover tales of history, European and _outremer_. She learned, laughed, loved, and experienced things which that Miltonian nimbus over her childhood- scorned by a sister and bereft of parents- had previously obscured.  
>They never mentioned in storybooks, Anna once quipped, how fun it was to have a princess kiss you to the edge of consciousness and then love you until you were barely coherent. And whoever 'they' are, they live much the worse for it.<p> 


End file.
